Anthrax Close-up, Part 2

Anthrax Close-up, Part 2 (Print This)
12/14/2008
The FBI says spores from the anthrax attack letters are genetically linked to spores in a flask controlled by Fort Detrick researcher Bruce Ivins. But high-tech microscopic analysis shows what might be a key difference.

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Randy Atkins: The chemical element silicon is in spores from the letters, but not in the flask. This means the spores used in the attack weren’t taken directly from the flask, but grown elsewhere…in the presence of silicon. But Serguei Popov, a George Mason biologist and former Soviet bioweapons researcher, says the levels of silicon are too high to be an accident – that it was either purposely added to weaponize the spores or…

Serguei Popov:...could have come from the use of foam suppressant agents, typically employed in the process of large scale fermentation of bacteria.

Randy Atkins: While the FBI thinks Ivins grew the spores at Fort Detrick, they haven’t been able to re-create them. Paul Kotula, an electron microscope expert at Sandia National Labs…

Paul Kotula: We looked at over 200 samples in our lab that were various attempts to reverse-engineer the process under which these powders were made and did not find a match.

Randy Atkins: With the National Academy of Engineering, Randy Atkins,
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Article in Technology Review featuring Popov
Information on anthrax
Information on biological attacks
The FBI Amerithrax investigation
Sandia's material characterization analysts (pictured: Joseph Michael, Paul Kotula and Ray Goehner)
Bacillus anthracis spores as viewed in scanning electron microscopy (left) and transmission electron microscopy (right)

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